


I Do What I Mean To

by strange_estrangement



Series: The Ravens Float Over Her [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, F/F, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_estrangement/pseuds/strange_estrangement
Summary: Blue learns her girlfriend is down for a little homicide. For some reason, Blue’s not cool with it.
Relationships: Joseph Kavinsky/Blue Sargent
Series: The Ravens Float Over Her [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1840294
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	I Do What I Mean To

**Author's Note:**

> I’d recommend reading the first fic in this series before this; if you’re not up for it, I’ve provided an extremely brief synopsis in this fic’s end notes.
> 
> As you might have noticed from the tags, this fic deals with domestic violence and child abuse. Please take care of yourself.

Kavinsky called Blue at two in the afternoon. “I’m going to kill someone. I just thought you should know.”

“Um,” said Blue.

“You know, in case I don’t come back.”

This was, Blue thought, not reassuring.

Kavinsky continued. “I just figured I should give you a heads up. It’s not a big deal. I’ll see you next week. Probably.”

“HOLD ON,” Blue shouted into the receiver. The connection clicked off. Blue hung up and then pinched the bridge of her nose. Kavinsky wasn’t, she reflected, the only one willing to commit homicide.

Grabbing her keys from the end table in the hall, Blue sprinted for her car. Her blue monstrosity of a vehicle sat parked on the street, sunlight winking off the spotless paint, catching and bursting into a hazy shimmer. Overnight, the side of the car had sprouted a painted spray of flowers, which she’d noticed earlier that morning, and which Blue suspected was courtesy of her reprobate girlfriend. Kavinsky wasn’t sleeping, then.

The flowers themselves reached sunnily upwards, curling from the bottom side panels and across the doors, winding around the wheels and through the quarter panels. A tiny row of daisies danced across the splitter at the front, which Blue personally felt was excessive and, she guessed, time consuming. Seeing them again, she rolled her eyes and stomped to the driver’s side door, unlocking it with her fob.

The car roared to life, and Blue threw it into drive, a million times more confident than she would have been two or three months ago. Settling into a purr, it waited, not quite patient, and so Blue gave in. Together, they leapt forward, climbing to the residential speed limit quickly and then plateauing, for while Kavinsky might be content to blow through gears in neighborhoods, Blue herself wasn’t intentionally a menace to society.

She drove through country roads until she hit Kavinsky’s street, filled with a half-dozen mansions climbing skyward. After parking in front of Kavinsky’s house, she advanced up the sidewalk—large, flat, smooth cobblestones blazingly white, neatly edged—and rapped smartly on the front door. When no one answered, she knocked again, longer this time and more insistent.

Something shattered inside, and Blue heard raised voices, faint through the thick wood of the front door. Mrs. Kavinsky and her daughter were back at it again, no doubt. Blue hadn’t often been privy to these moments of domestic chaos, but she knew they happened with more regularity than perhaps they should. Well, Blue thought, who was she to judge the harmony, or lack thereof, at home? Her own mother left first a note and then Blue, just two months ago, and Blue hadn’t heard from her.

It made Calla cranky. It made Persephone flutter, although Persephone always fluttered.

Regardless, Kavinsky and her mother did not get along, and that was the mildest way Blue knew how to say it.

She knocked again. From inside, she could hear someone—Kavinsky—drawing closer to the door as she got louder and louder, still shouting.

“-ust, for once, fuck off!” Kavinsky yelled over her shoulder as she opened the door. She swiveled her head to look at Blue. “Hey.”

Blue, mouth thin with disapproval, said, “Uh huh,” and pushed her way inside.

Shutting the door behind her, Kavinsky leaned against the closed door, one shoulder against the frosted glass and ankles crossed, all nonchalance. “Fancy seeing you here.” The line of her smile was dangerous.

Blue felt pretty dangerous herself. She curled her fingers around the words as she said, “‘Fancy seeing you here?’ You can’t just—”

“Hold that thought,” said Kavinsky, and pushed off the door to head into the kitchen.

Blue rolled her eyes. Unbelievable. She followed Kavinsky into the kitchen, stopping in front of the granite-covered island, speckled gray and black.

Kavinsky herself stopped at the opposite counter in front of a blender. She gave it a few more pulses, whirring loudly in the quiet of the house—where was Mrs. Kavinsky now?—and poured the contents into a glass. She left it on the corner of the island.

Blue thought it looked disgusting, all green and pulpy.

Kavinsky, then, cocked her head toward the doorway to the front stairwell. “Shall we, like, fucking retire, lady?”

Blue took two steps toward the doorway, and Kavinsky made to follow. Gesturing back toward the horrible smoothie, Blue asked, “You don’t want your...drink?”

Kavinsky laughed. “Oh, no. Gross, no. That’s not for me.” She passed Blue, close enough for their shoulders to brush. “Up we get.”

Up they got.

Kavinsky reached her room, twisted the knob, and threw open the door, which thumped against the stopper and bounced back enough that Blue, on her heels, had to put out a hand to stop it.

Kavinsky’s room was a war zone.

Blue had learned, over the course of the past couple months, that Mrs. Kavinsky hired a local woman—paid both for cleaning and for discretion—to scrub the house twice a week. The woman was not allowed in Kavinsky’s room, despite the fact that this room could use her attention the most.

Together, they expertly navigated piles of clothes and mounds of shoes—how many Adidas sneakers did one person even need?—to reach the bed.

“So,” Kavinsky said after flopping down among the detritus on her bed, “what can I do you for?”

Blue snagged a white beater off the floor, wadded it into a tight ball, and lobbed it at Kavinsky’s head. “You want to tell me what that call was about?”

One-handed, Kavinsky caught the shirt and tossed it on a pile of its siblings. “Seemed self explanatory to me. Gotta deliver some payback, et cetera, et cetera. No big deal.”

Blue felt murderous herself. “No big deal? You’re going to say this, whatever it is, is no big deal.”

“Like, yeah, man.”

“Oh my god.” Blue felt a permanent crease forming between her eyebrows. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly between her teeth, nearly a whistle. “Okay. Let’s start over. Hey, K. How are you? It’s really great to see you this morning. Would you please tell me what’s going on?”

“You know,” Kavinsky shook one finger at Blue, “I feel like you’re being sarcastic. But that’s fine, I’m a gentleman.” She sat up in bed and mimed at Blue. “I,” pointing at herself, “am going to,” fingers walking across the air, “kill someone,” finger drawn across her own throat, tongue sticking out comically.

Comically, if Blue were in the mood to laugh. “Truly hilarious. You have a future in the theater. K, seriously.”

A shimmer caught her eye near Kavinsky’s side; Blue reached over and unearthed something half-buried under more clothes: a knife, the grip matte black and the blade silver, inscribed with Cyrillic script. Blue recognized the order of the characters even if she couldn’t read what they said; one side matched a line from the tattoo on Kavinsky’s side. Flipping the blade over, Blue saw that the last line of the tattoo marched across the blade. The knife was light, lighter than it had any business being—a dream thing, then, a matched pair with Kavinsky’s ribs. Gingerly, Blue felt the tip, and, yes, it was very sharp; a single drop of blood welled at her fingertip.

Blue rolled her eyes. A knife, a very sharp knife, in the bed? Sure, why not. Blue walked to Kavinsky’s desk and yanked open the top drawer, swept aside its contents, and placed the knife at the bottom before closing the drawer again. Sharp objects, she felt, would not be helpful in this conversation.

She started again. “So after everything that happened with Henry Broadway, you’re telling me you’re just, like,” Blue shrugged one shoulder, feigned nonchalance, “ _cool_ to try it again?”

“All that shit went down before I met you. I’m a new fucking woman.”

Blue gritted her teeth. “Obviously, you are not a ‘new fucking woman’ if you’re going to kill someone. K. Come on. That’s not what—” She stopped.

Kavinsky leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Not what?” She was serious, now, more serious than she’d been this entire morning.

Blue sighed. “That’s not what I signed up for.”

“Jesus Christ, Blue.” Kavinsky ran one hand through her hair. “You really don’t want to, like, know—” She stopped and cleared her throat before starting again. “Man, sometimes it seems like you don’t care what I’m doing. When’s the last time you came to a party, huh?”

“K, that’s not my thing, and you know it. I also didn’t sign up to rain on your parade.” Blue felt tension creep into her shoulders. “That’s not fair, and that’s not what we’re talking about right now. Besides, you can’t look me in the face and tell me you’d have just as much fun with your friends if I was there.”

Kavinsky looked at her, face blank. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I would. You think I don’t want to hang out with the girl I’m dating? And don’t,” Kavinsky waved her hand, “bring up Skov. She’d behave, and you know it.”

Blue scoffed. “She’s never behaved a day in her life,” and Blue felt some of the tension leave the room.

Smiling a little, Kavinsky said, “Yeah, man, okay, you have a point.” She got up and paced over to Blue, took Blue’s hands in hers. “Okay. It’s fine, okay? Look. I was just kidding. I’m kidding. I’m not gonna do anything. Promise.”

Blue remained unconvinced, but she let Kavinsky hold her hands anyway. “I don’t care if you were kidding or not. Actually,” she cleared her throat, “I hope you weren’t kidding because it’s kind of a mean thing to kid about, but whatever. Just...don’t, K. Don’t do whatever you were thinking about doing.”

Kavinsky ran the rough of her thumb over the backs of Blue’s knuckles. “I won’t. Cross my heart and hope to fucking die.”

Blue patted Kavinsky on the cheek and did her best not to sound condescending. “You’re smart, K. Don’t look at me like that. You are. Figure out another way.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,” Kavinsky said, hanging her head for a moment before looking up at Blue, a glint in her eye. “So, man, we’re basically alone in my bedroom with this giant bed right here, and—” she drew Blue a step toward the bed, then another, then another, “we got all the time in the world, right?”

Blue smiled. “Was this just the world’s most elaborate booty call?”

“Did it work?” The corner of Kavinsky’s mouth tilted up, sly.

“Maybe.”

“Then, yeah, maybe it was.”

***

The clock blinked at Blue, 2:47 A.M., obnoxious red numbers. She groaned and rolled over before she heard the ring of the phone. That must have been what woke her up. Not even three in the morning, and someone was calling. Blue was going to kill her girlfriend. Who else could it be? Three entire days incommunicado, and Kavinsky decides to call now.

Another ring followed by loud, stomping footsteps in the hallway and the furious, incomprehensible mumblings of the truly aggrieved. Calla. Oh God, Calla was answering the phone.

Blue bolted out of bed just as Calla shouted for her, fit to wake the neighbors. She bounded down the hallway towards the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room and towards a very angry Calla, arranging her face into its most apologetic form.

Calla did not look impressed.

Blue took the receiver and waited until Calla shuffled off to hold it to her ear. “Hello?”

“She spends all that time with you, and you’re still chained to a landline?” A laugh. “Dude. Make her put her money where her mouth is. She’s got plenty of both.”

Skov. Skov, drunk, for her words were slurred. Skov, drunk, at a party, for Blue heard the thump of the bass in the background, the sound of her peers hollering, and abruptly she wondered where Kavinsky was. Three days without a word.

“Blake,” said Blue frostily, which was very frosty indeed considering the time. “What do you want?”

Another laugh. Ugh. “No need to make this nasty. Hey, why don’t you—”

Blue heard the laugh drain out of Skov’s voice, the smile off her face, a complete tonal shift that only the truly drunk had mastered.

Skov continued. “Why don’t you make yourself useful for once?”

Blue bristled. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Is it really so fucking hard to keep her here? Fuck, dude. Fuckin—”

“Okay,” said Blue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t have to listen to this. I’m hanging up. Nice talking to you, Blake.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Wait. Blue. She’s gonna get herself killed. Do your fucking job and keep her here.”

Blue, confused, asked, “What do you mean, my job?”

“Your, like, job, dude. She’s skipping town, and it’s your job to tie her down. Keep her, like, tethered.”

Tethered? Skipping town? None of this made any sense. Why would K leave, and why would Skov be calling Blue about it? Blue replied, eyes closed in concentration, “Okay. She’s leaving town, apparently, and you think what she does is my responsibility? Why don’t you tell her to stay?”

Skov laughed, harsh. “You think she listens to us? Come on. Nobody ever got her to do anything besides you. So fucking...fix it.”

“I’m—” Blue stopped, then, because she heard Kavinsky’s muffled voice in the background. “Skov,” she said. Louder. “Skov!”

Skov didn’t answer, phone doubtless tucked against her shoulder, as she responded instead to Kavinsky. Kavinsky’s voice got louder and louder, closer and closer to the phone, and Blue knew Kavinsky had gotten up in Skov’s face because she heard, clear as a bell, “What did you fucking tell her?”

Skov, in turn, told Kavinsky to fuck off, and Blue heard the undeniable smack of a fist hitting a face.

The line went dead.

Blue thumped her head against the wall by the receiver, once, before placing the phone back in its cradle.

Here’s what Blue knew: Kavinsky hadn’t talked to her in three days. Kavinsky was leaving town. Kavinsky was, according to Skov, going to get herself killed. Skov had Blue’s phone number, which was the least pressing concern, but still definitely weird. Skov was under the impression Blue could do something about it, and Blue didn’t know if that was the case.

K leaving town...assuming Skov wasn’t lying—a big assumption—this must be connected to the conversation Blue and K had three days ago.

Kavinsky had lied to her.

***

Blue woke and, for a moment, lay listening to the silence. She had just fallen asleep, it seemed, curled uncomfortably at the head of her bed. 3:37 A.M. Less than an hour after Skov’s phone call.

Something _plinked_ against the window, then; ah, that must be what had woken her up. Another _plink_. Someone was throwing stones against her window. This day simply would not end. She pulled herself out of bed, staggered to the window, and swept aside her curtains.

Huh. Ronan.

Ronan stood below her window, a handful of gravel in one hand and her other ready to let loose another piece to assault Blue’s window and Blue’s sleep. Blue threw the window open and hissed out into the night, “What on earth are you doing?”

Ronan gestured at her feet, and only then did Blue see the body. Kavinsky lay where she was, no doubt, dumped unceremoniously, her limbs askew and her breathing deep.

“I got a delivery,” said Ronan.

Blue just stared.

“You don’t have to sign for her or anything. Jesus. Are you going to take her or not?” Ronan dropped the gravel and dusted off her palms. “She requested you specifically. She was, like, pretty adamant before she passed out.”

This was not, Blue thought, the kind of conversation she wanted to have with Ronan, nor the conversation she wanted to have at three in the morning, nor the conversation she wanted to have whispering out her window.

“Just,” Blue took a breath, “hold on.”

She closed the window and hastily pulled on a pair of leggings under her oversized shirt before heading down to the back door. She eased back the bolt and opened the door halfway, enough to avoid the telltale squeak that would have summoned Calla. As she watched, Ronan knelt down and patted Kavinsky’s cheek, none too gently.

“K. Wake up. Bitch, I’m not carrying you in.”

Kavinsky stirred a little but didn’t open her eyes. Ronan carried her in.

Blue flitted around the two of them, first shutting the door behind Ronan after she slipped inside with Kavinsky in a bridal carry—turning the handle of the door just so to ease the latch into the jamb, which would, she knew, go off like a gunshot in this dark house—and then leading the way upstairs to her room. Otherwise, Blue didn’t offer to help. Ronan was a lot taller than both her and Kavinsky and much stronger.

Blue directed Ronan inside and to the bed, where Ronan dumped Kavinsky, again unceremoniously. Blue closed the door quietly. She flicked on the light and, only then, got a look at Kavinsky’s face.

Kavinsky had gotten herself a black eye.

She suspected, but she asked Ronan anyway. “What happened? Did she get into a fight?”

Ronan crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Yeah.”

Blue waited for Ronan to continue. When it was obvious Ronan wouldn’t, Blue pushed. “What happened tonight? She smells like a bonfire and, oh yeah, she’s unconscious.”

It was true that Kavinsky smelled like a bonfire, Blue thought, but she also smelled like cigarettes and alcohol and gasoline. Light a match, and she’d go up in flames.

Ronan continued to stand with her arms crossed. “I’m not a snitch, and I’m not,” she looked at Kavinsky with carefully practiced distaste, “her fucking keeper. That’s what you’re for.”

Blue glared. Skov’s voice echoed, _Do your fucking job_. Blue was hearing that a lot tonight.

After a pause, Ronan relented. “Fine. She threw a party, okay? Like the good old days.”

“Before me, you mean.”

It was Ronan’s turn to glare. “Stop interrupting. Yes, before you. She threw a party, tried to deck Skov who decked her back, took God only knows what, and burned down half her graveyard of buried dreams. And then the cops showed up, obviously, because the fucking field was on fire, and all her actual friends were too hosed to take her. And I couldn’t take her home, _obviously_ ,” and Ronan gestured at her face, “so. Here she is. Surprise.”

Blue wondered at that. Couldn’t take Kavinsky home. Did Ronan think Kavinsky’s mom cared about a black eye? “You didn’t think a hospital would be more appropriate?”

For the first time this evening, Ronan started to look uncomfortable. “It’s not like this is the first time, and besides,” Ronan shifted her feet, “I figured you would, you know, want her. Here.” Ronan looked at the expression on Blue’s face. “Jesus. It’s not a big deal. Look, I have to go. Gansey’s probably up wringing her hands and gluing cardboard together all wrong.”

“Yeah, okay,” Blue said. “Wait.” She thought for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Already did,” and the corner of Ronan’s mouth pulled up.

“Hilarious. What—” Blue started before stopping again. She hadn’t really figured out what she wanted to ask. “You’ve known her a lot longer than I have,” and Blue watched as Ronan’s eyes narrowed. “You have, and I’m not sure—I’m not sure what to do. She said...she lied to me about something, but now….” Blue gestured to Kavinsky.

Ronan shook her head. “K lies. Part of her charm.”

The thing was, Blue thought, K didn’t lie any more than Ronan lied, and she wasn’t sure why Ronan thought what she did. Kavinsky, for all her faults, told Blue the truth when Blue asked, which made this situation more confusing. More unsettling.

Ronan continued, “But now you’re worried you’ll look like a pussy if you don’t say anything and a dick if you do.”

Now it was Blue’s turn to narrow her eyes. “If you want to put it that way.”

“I do want to put it that way.” Ronan looked between Blue and Kavinsky, lingering a moment, before looking back to Blue. “Take no shit, Sargent.”

“Take no shit,” Blue replied. “Got it.” Take no shit. She could do that.

Ronan, having had her fill of heart-to-hearts, said, “All right, maggot. Go tend to those war wounds or whatever it is you do.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Blue said, rapidfire. “You want a tip for your delivery? I have—” She got off the bed and rummaged around until she found her boot and the small pocket sewn to the inside. She produced two of Kavinsky’s pills, holding them out to Ronan in the palm of her hand.

Ronan, of course, recognized them immediately and laughed. “You a drug mule now, Sargent? What would Gansey say?”

“I don’t know what Gansey would say,” Blue replied, “but I’m saying it’s none of Gansey’s business. Do you want them or not?”

Ronan shook her head but took them anyway. “You’ll be fine. Take no shit.” Then, she saluted, two fingers to forehead, and let herself out.

Blue sighed and turned back to Kavinsky, still passed out. Her breathing was deep and even, more like she was asleep rather than on death’s door. Blue sighed again and tipped Kavinsky on her side, facing the rest of the room, and crawled in between her and the wall.

She had a long few hours ahead of her.

***

Wednesday morning. Ugh. Blue hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, too many assholes calling her and showing up at her window, and afterwards she lay awake thinking about what Kavinsky had said a few days before: I was just kidding, she’d said, but then she’d gone on a bender and turned up half-dead at Blue’s door. Blue imagined this kind of behavior wasn’t uncommon, but it hadn’t happened in months. Not while they’d been dating.

During the night, she and Kavinsky had shifted, and now Kavinsky lay sprawled across the lion’s share of the bed. Blue was wedged far against one side, an arm caught in the narrow space between bed and wall. She groaned. Typical.

Blue wiggled loose and then climbed over Kavinsky, less careful about knees and elbows than she might have been otherwise. She beat Orla to the bathroom and then returned to find Kavinsky still dead to the world. Also typical and not surprising after last night. Or rather, this morning.

After getting dressed, Blue sat at the edge of the bed, wrapped one hand around Kavinsky’s wrist, and shook.

“Mmmmmph.” Kavinsky woke molasses-slow—so much different than she did after dreaming when she was all frenzy-eyed adrenaline, waking like a gunshot or an escape.

“School,” said Blue, trying to keep the harsh edge out of her voice. She supposed she should listen to what Kavinsky had to say before losing her temper; a real test of Blue’s self control.

Kavinsky only grunted again and pulled the covers over her head.

Blue poked at Kavinsky again. “Okay. Well. I’m going to school.” Another noncommittal grunt from Kavinsky.

 _Take no shit, Sargent_. Blue paused, irritation building. Abruptly, she stood. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” she said and turned away before Kavinsky could respond.

***

Good girlfriends, Blue thought all throughout the school day, were patient and understanding. Good girlfriends probably didn’t yell at their hungover significant other when she turned up unconscious after a bender. Granted, Blue didn’t have much experience being a girlfriend, a good one or otherwise, but she figured she shouldn’t be so frustrated, probably. Ronan might think she was justified but, like...that was Ronan, who was always angry and who also didn’t have experience being a good girlfriend.

Because Blue was angry. Frustration, throughout the course of the day, had morphed into anger. She and Kavinsky had an understanding; Blue wasn’t—what phrase did Ronan use?—Kavinsky’s keeper, and so Blue largely ignored whatever Kavinsky got up to in her spare time as long as Kavinsky kept it to herself. In turn, Kavinsky started spending more and more time with Blue, less and less partying with her friends, which Blue supposed didn’t endear either one of them to the pack. Still, it worked for them; or at least, it had until now, before Blue was forced to confront Kavinsky’s darker impulses, which they’d been able to sidestep.

They’d gone through so much only a couple months ago, and it felt intimate to Blue, intimate like Blue had gotten to know the real Kavinsky. Was it all fake, all this time? Blue knew she had ignored certain things about Kavinsky: the drugs, the parties, the way Kavinsky still went on alert when Ronan was around, like a hound dog. And yet, it didn’t seem, to Blue, to be a big deal. It wasn’t a big deal because they’d shared a lot more than drugs and parties...what were drugs and parties and Ronan in the face of what they’d experienced together? It didn’t seem like a big deal.

It didn’t until right now.

And so, she was angry with Kavinsky for disappearing for three days. She was angry at Kavinsky for turning up midway through a bender that seemed, to Blue, to be on its way to an overdose. Most of all, she was angry at Kavinsky for lying to her and for planning to leave without a word. And she was angry at herself for ignoring a potential problem, and Kavinsky’s own issues, in favor of smooth sailing and an easy—or easier—relationship.

Whatever the problem was, whatever the solution, Blue needed to prioritize. First things first, she reminded herself as she trudged up the front walk to her house. First things first. Talk to Kavinsky.

Kavinsky, finally vertical, sat on the bed with her back against the headboard, flipping through a paper. She looked up when Blue walked in.

“So,” Blue started.

“So,” repeated Kavinsky.

Blue sat next to Kavinsky on the bed and said, in the most neutral tone she could manage, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? I think,” and Blue paused. “I think after this morning, I have the right to know.”

“Hm.” Kavinsky gave a noncommittal grunt. “You think so, huh?”

Take no shit, Sargent. “Yeah, I do.”

“I meant what I said before, man. You only want to know what I’m up to when it’s, like, fucking palatable or whatever.” Kavinsky kept flipping through the paper, like she didn’t even care about what seemed to Blue to be a precursor to a fight. A continuation of the same fight. Whatever.

Sargent, take no shit. Blue clenched her hands in the covers. “I don’t think that’s entirely fair. What do you want from me? You want me to party with you? Be best friends with Skov? Get on your case whenever Ronan…” She trailed off. “I don’t think it’s fair. Can you please just look at me?”

Kavinsky didn’t look up.

“I don’t know what you want from me. You won’t talk to me, and then you give me a hard time for ignoring your many, many problems, whatever those are. But, K, you won’t tell me anything! I don’t—”

Kavinsky made an abortive gesture, cutting Blue off.

Blue studied her and the dark shadow around her eye.

Kavinsky said, “I don’t tell you shit because I want to keep you out of it. It’s not your problem, and I can handle it. It’s not your problem.”

“It is my problem!” Blue insisted. “It is my problem when you disappear for three days and when Ronan dumps you off at my house, and, oh yeah, when you lie to my face!”

“Oh yeah,” repeated Kavinsky. “You weren’t supposed to know about that. Skov’s a dick.”

“Whether or not,” Blue said through clenched teeth, “you want to keep me out of something, you don’t get to lie to me. How hard is it to tell the truth? To me, of all people?”

“It’s fucking hard, man! You don’t know shit. I already told you, I meant what I said—”

It was Blue’s turn to interrupt. “And I already told you, I do care, and you can talk to me about anything. I don’t know how else to get that through your thick skull.”

Finally, Kavinsky looked up, her gaze piercing into Blue’s. She laid the paper on the end table, slowly, and rolled to her feet. She towered over Blue now, who still sat on the bed. “In the interest,” Kavinsky said, all heat, “of full fucking disclosure, I’m gonna throw a party tonight, and I’m gonna get fully blitzed, and I’m probably gonna come on to Ronan since apparently you think that’s all I do.”

“That’s not—”

“Whatever. Look, man, you wanted to know, like, the itinerary of my evening so come or don’t come. Maybe I don’t really care. It would be nice,” she punctuated her sentence by pulling on her shoes and yanking at the laces, “that when I say I’m handling my shit, if you’d fucking believe me instead of grilling me about the goddamn details all the time. Fuck.”

Take no shit, Sargent. “Maybe,” and now it was Blue’s turn to stand up, “instead of an itinerary, you could be honest with me for once. Like, I’m not being crazy here. I tell you stuff all the time, but you’re like this black hole sometimes, and I know you’re not just empty, I know there’s something you’re not telling me, but I can’t figure it out on my own!” She willed her hands not to shake with frustration. “You don’t have to do everything on your own. You don’t. You don’t, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s worked out for me so far. You know what, actually, don’t come tonight. I’d rather,” and Kavinsky stalked toward the door, “be there _on my own_.” And she slammed the door behind her.

Blue abruptly sat on the bed. Did she just get dumped?

No. No she didn’t get dumped. Probably. However opaque Kavinsky was about the events of the past couple days, she would have been clear about this. Probably.

Hopefully.

They were just in a fight, which, Blue reminded herself, was not the end of the world; the ache in her chest wasn’t apocalyptic nor unsolvable. They just needed some time.

***

Blue kept mulling over what she said to Kavinsky, what Kavinsky said back, the phone call from Skov, the way Kavinsky looked sitting against the headboard with her black eye, the strident tone of Blue’s voice—everything. This wasn’t the first time they’d fought, but it was certainly the most serious and also the most opaque. Frustrating.

By the end of her shift at Nino’s, she’d had enough time to sit and spin, too much time. She wanted an apology, but more than that, she wanted to understand what was going on with Kavinsky. Whatever it was felt so different from their other fights. She wanted to resolve this, whatever this was.

The evenings, this early in September, hadn’t yet lost their summer sweetness; the sunset had burned to embers, leaving only a line of orange against the blue mountains. That, too, would fade soon, giving permission for the stars to blink into the night sky. Blue took a deep breath and closed her eyes; the cicadas chirped merrily in the treeline just beyond the parking lot as they greeted the night.

The employee parking lot, nestled cozily behind Nino’s, was lit only by the soft glow from the twinkle lights dancing over the eaves and the erstwhile sunset lingering just over the horizon. Soon enough, the lot would be pitch black, the edges of it fading demurely into the trees. Kavinsky wouldn’t be waiting tonight, Blue supposed. Not tonight, and so Blue would have to go to her.

When she pulled up in front of the palatial Kavinsky estate, she noticed a strange car in the driveway. A big, black Range Rover sat behind Kavinsky’s car, so out of character for the cars more commonly littering the front driveway. Kavinsky generally hosted people like her, so this SUV with its glossy paint and shiny rims stood in sharp relief against Blue’s mental picture of candy-colored two-doors parked haphazardly in the driveway.

After leaning her bike against the side of the garage, Blue glanced again at the imposing vehicle before heading up the walk to the front door. She knocked.

Mrs. Kavinsky answered.

At first glance, Blue didn’t notice anything different. Mrs. Kavinsky’s hair was in disarray, her clothes rumpled, her eyes vacant; nothing unusual. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then Blue’s gaze was drawn to the collar of Mrs. Kavinsky’s shirt, the linen wrinkled in a circle right at the front, as though someone had grabbed the collar and bunched it in their fist…

Blue looked again in Mrs. Kavinsky’s eyes and saw her gaze sharpen. “Hello, Mrs. Kavinsky. Is your daughter home?”

Mrs. Kavinsky opened her mouth as if to speak, but she snapped it shut at the sound of footsteps.

“What is she doing here? What are you doing here?” Kavinsky stood at the bottom of the steps, just inside the door. Blue redirected her attention from Kavinsky’s mother to focus on Kavinsky instead.

Kavinsky’s face was pale, her lips bloodless, and she seemed scattered, more on edge than Blue had seen her in a long time. Her fingers twitched where they clasped the edge of the front door, rings tapping against the wood restlessly. Her pupils swallowed her irises, leaving only a narrow ring behind.

Something was wrong.

Blue started again. “What’s going—”

“No,” Kavinsky interrupted again. “I don’t have time for this. Please just leave,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper. She turned to her mom and hissed, “Why didn’t you send her away? I mean, have you really learned fucking nothing? Jesus Christ.” Back to Blue. “Can you please make this easy for me for once in your life? Please leave.” She paused, and, when Blue made no move to go, she continued. “I’m dead shit serious. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to fucking look at you.”

Something was so, so wrong. Blue bristled, but even as she did, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

From inside the house, a deep, rolling voice asked, “Who is it?”

Kavinsky looked straight into Blue’s eyes. “It’s no one,” she said, and she slammed the door in Blue’s face. Blue heard her from inside, “Wrong house.”

Stung, Blue backed away from the front door. She retreated to the garage for her bike but kept going toward the back of the house where French doors opened onto the patio and yawning windows left no room for privacy. She just had to see. Whoever drove that big car in the driveway had spooked Kavinsky, badly; even after the days they’d had, Blue couldn’t reconcile their fight with Kavinsky’s behavior today.

Rounding the last corner, she heard a loud crash from inside, like something had slammed into the wall right next to her. At last, she reached the first of the rear windows—the broken window, jagged shards of glass littering the grass in front of Blue’s feet, a sturdy vase a foot or two away—and peeked inside the house.

She stood face-to-face with—everything.

The fall breeze, wafting in from the broken window, ruffled the curtains on the far side of the room and plinked at the shattered glass on the floor. The dent in the kitchen’s far wall presided over scratches on the hardwood, and Kavinsky stood frozen among it all, Kavinsky and a man in a suit, the man who must have driven the SUV. Blue looked past them to Mrs. Kavinsky, sitting on the floor below the damaged wall, staring fixedly at the floor like her salvation lay in the whorls of the wood.

Kavinsky, though, Kavinsky stared only at the man in the suit.

“Now, now, sweetheart,” the man said, his voice deep and jarring and terrible. He smiled as he said it, and Blue saw Kavinsky clench her fists in time with the spasm in her mother’s jaw.

It was Kavinsky’s father standing there in the kitchen.

“Dad,” Kavinsky replied, and Blue watched her swallow her fear, a tangible thing harnessed and shoved deep to deal with this moment. “You don’t have to do this.” Blue watched Kavinsky surreptitiously pat her sides for the knife she usually carried, and then she stilled: no pockets in her school uniform.

Her father’s smile widened; he’d seen.

Kavinsky clenched her fists in the folds of her skirt. She looked at her mother for a moment and then back at her father. “We’ll lay low. I’ve been laying low. Ever since—” She stopped abruptly.

“Since your visit?” He took a step forward, closer to Kavinsky, and she took a step back.

“Come on, Dad, I know it didn’t really go—”

He interrupted again. “Didn’t go well? Understatement, sweetheart. You and,” he grimaced and spat the word, “your _mother_ are coming back. You,” and he took another step forward, “apparently can’t be left unsupervised.”

Kavinsky took a step back, keeping space between her and her father. Her back was almost to the wall, and her eyes flicked back and forth between her mother and the doors at the back of the house. The doors at the back, and then she saw Blue at the window, haloed by broken glass.

Blue didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have a phone, couldn’t call anyone, but maybe she could find one...she held her hand up to her ear and mimed a phone call, gesturing at Kavinsky with her other hand. Kavinsky saw her gesture and stiffened, shook her head at Blue, but her father noticed. God, her father noticed and turned whip-fast to see Blue at the window. Blue caught his gaze for a moment and stood transfixed, knees locked; Kavinsky’s father then glanced back to Kavinsky, whose expression mirrored the fear Blue knew to be on her own face.

He’d seen. Kavinsky never could hide her feelings, always written plain in her expression, and here they were again to disastrous effect. He’d seen, and in this one moment, he’d divined what Blue meant to Kavinsky, what Blue knew she meant to Kavinsky, no matter what Kavinsky had said at the front door.

Kavinsky’s eyes now flicked between her mother and Blue and her father. Too many people. Too many people to keep track of, too impossible.

Kavinsky’s father took a step toward Blue.

“Blue, run!” Kavinsky shrieked, and Blue ran.

As she ran, she looked over her shoulder, but the corner of the house blocked her view, and she couldn’t see, couldn’t see what was happening, but she knew she should have listened to Kavinsky in the first place, oh fuck—

She slammed into a dark figure directly in front of her, a shape that grabbed at her, at her shirt, at her arms. In a moment of pure instinct, like Calla had taught her, she rocketed her fist into his crotch and wriggled away as he went down like a pile of stones. Only a few more steps now to her bike. She grabbed at the handlebars and swung herself over the seat, pedaling furiously away from the Kavinsky house, only stopping when she reached the wooded park three blocks away.

Should she call someone? Who on earth would she call? The cops were less than useless in situations like this, that much she’d learned from listening to fortunes in a house of psychics, and besides she couldn’t call the cops on Kavinsky of all people. Of all people! She shouldn’t have run. Did that make her a coward, even though Kavinsky obviously didn’t want her there? If there was one thing Blue knew about herself, it was that she wasn’t a coward, and yet—

And yet she’d run when her girlfriend needed her the most, even though her girlfriend told her to go. Maybe she was a coward, some frightened little girl when it mattered most.

Blue understood, then, suddenly and with terrible clarity: this is what K lied about. K meant to kill her father, and instead, Blue had talked her out of it. Blue had talked her out of it, and K’s father had shown up here instead. He’d done something just now, something to terrorize his wife and daughter, and Blue didn’t need three guesses to figure out what.

Blue had stopped K, and now they were paying the price. This wasn’t just K being K; this was something else, and Blue had run away.

Should she go back? How could she possibly help in this situation? Skov. She could call Skov once she got to a phone. Back home, then.

She wheeled her bike back onto the park’s narrow, twisting path in time to hear the echo of car doors slamming shut behind her.

Whoever that man was she’d narrowly escaped, whatever the reason for Kavinsky’s father’s visit, they were on their way toward Blue.

Blue glanced back down the path but didn’t see anyone; still, only one way forward. She pulled her crocheted vest more tightly around herself before pedaling toward the end of the path, glancing behind her every so often. Was it paranoia if it was justified?

One glance back was all it took.

She pedaled wheels-first into a large, dark figure, who reached out with shadowy hands to grab her handlebars and twist. She tumbled off the bike, scraping knees and elbows as a bloody offering to the pavement, before jumping back to her feet.

She pulled out her switchblade and flicked it open.

Kavinsky’s father stood before her, black Oxfords planted on the pavement and one hand around the grip of a pistol pointed directly at her.

“If it isn’t the company,” he said, mouth twisting sourly around _company_. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Blue felt the tension settle into her shoulders as she clenched her fists. “Don’t you come anywhere near me. I’ll scream.”

He smiled benevolently at her, gun unwavering. “I’m sure you would, my dear. However,” and now he gestured to the wooded copse with one hand, to a car behind him in the shadows. “You might want to hold off on that.” He raised his hand over his head and snapped his fingers. Blue, in a moment of deja vu, remembered Kavinsky doing the same thing all those months ago, and she suddenly saw the chilling similarity between father and daughter.

The sound of a car door latch went off like a gunshot, to Blue’s ears, as she stood on edge, the tension settling between her shoulder blades and knotting her neck. The light from inside the car—the Range Rover—cast a halo on the scene inside; a woman sat in the front seat, gaze fixed on her lap, and a man gripped Kavinsky by the back of the neck as her head lolled to one side. Like a rag doll, and Blue didn’t know if she was unconscious or if she was looking at Kavinsky’s dead body.

She took a step toward Kavinsky’s father, switchblade up. “You—”

“Careful, young lady.” He looked perfectly calm, perfectly in control, perfectly terrifying. “She’s fine, and she’ll continue to be fine as long as you cooperate.” He must have read the look on Blue’s face because he said, “Let me put it this way. She’s got a sedative in her now, a nice, dreamless sleep. That can change. You don’t come with us, I’m emptying a different syringe into her, and trust me when I say her sleep won’t be nice or dreamless. Who knows what kind of condition she’s going to be in when she wakes up.” He smiled. “So what’s it going to be?”

“You wouldn’t. She’s too valuable.” She’s too valuable, Blue thought, but oh, what a horrible bet to make.

“What’s that phrase? You don’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs?” He gestured with the gun and said, “Let’s go.”

Blue could scream. She could. If she were anywhere else, she would, but the park was deserted. Could she risk a random passerby coming to her rescue? Trying to come to her rescue?

On the other hand, once you got taken, Blue figured, you might not ever get untaken. Everything was a gamble, and Blue was not typically a betting woman. She thought, though, that she’d bet on Kavinsky.

Even after everything, after the lies, she’d bet on Kavinsky.

Risks calculated, Blue gave way to the pull of Kavinsky’s limp body.

The Range Rover loomed in front of her, and, oh God, she was so scared. She clenched her fists and tilted her chin up, nodding once at Kavinsky’s father. She stepped toward the SUV, knees feeling rubbery and weak. She wouldn’t show it, though, she couldn’t, and so she put one foot in front of the other until she reached the open door.

Kavinsky’s chest rose and fell, her face peaceful and serene. Blue knew she never looked this calm while she slept, tension always laid bare on her face because she couldn’t control the real world while dreaming. But now, the line in between her eyebrows had smoothed, and she breathed evenly, in and out.

Kavinsky’s father gestured again, and Blue took one great step into the SUV, crouching next to Kavinsky. He closed the door before making his way around to the driver’s seat; The front door slammed shut, and the click of the locks made her flinch. Next to her, the silent, nameless man held out his hands for hers, and she hesitated. He gestured impatiently before reaching forward and grabbing both of her wrists with one large iron grip.

She twisted, but he squeezed tight enough that she could feel the bones of her wrist grind together. Subsiding, she watched as he produced zip ties like the ones wrapped around Kavinsky’s wrists. Blue clenched her hands into fists, ten knuckles lined up in a continuous ridge. The man shook his head and twisted until the insides of her wrists were pressed close together, and there he tied them.

Blue knew the theory of breaking zip ties, but she’d never done it; she thought grimly that there was a first time for everything. Later, though, later when Kavinsky’s cheek wasn’t pressed against the woven fabric of the bench. Later, she’d try it.

“It’s a long drive, sweetheart,” Kavinsky’s father said and smiled. “Try to get some sleep.”

Blue felt a sharp sting in the side of her neck, and then felt nothing.

***

Blue woke to a blizzard.

She propped herself up, both hands buried in the snow behind her. Both hands—both her hands were free, and she held them up in front of her. Only then did she notice that her hands weren’t cold; she reached down for a handful of snow, which flaked through her fingers and fell back to the earth. It felt like nothing, not real snow certainly. It had no weight in her hands, no texture. Rubbing it between her fingers produced nothing, no melting icy river, no pins and needles from the chill.

Glancing around, for the substance still fell from the sky, she realized—it was static. It was nothing but the noise of a faulty signal, for Kavinsky had pulled them both into a dream without realizing it.

She got up to her feet and started walking, promptly tripping over a mound in front of her. A mound in this flat wasteland, and she scrambled to unearth whatever it was the static buried.

Feet first, then legs, stomach, arms draped loosely over chest. Kavinsky. Blue would recognize those tattoos anywhere. She hurried to uncover Kavinsky’s face, and then sat back abruptly when she did. Gone was the peaceful bliss of a dreamless sleep that Blue remembered from the Range Rover. Instead, Kavinsky’s face was frozen in a wordless scream, mouth gaping wide, eyes bulging. She looked terrified, tortured, and Blue had never seen such an expression on Kavinsky’s face.

She looked like she was trapped in a nightmare.

She was, they both were, and Blue shook Kavinsky’s arm feverishly. “K, wake up! K! Snap out of it!”

Nothing. Just frozen terror and nothing else. Blue realized then that Kavinsky was powerless like this, under the influence of whatever drug her father had given her. Nothing to do here in this barren wasteland but wait. Wait and think about how K had tried to protect her.

Blue lay down next to Kavinsky, curled up on her side, head nestled on Kavinsky’s stomach. She threaded their fingers together, running the tips of her fingers over Kavinsky’s scarred knuckles, and watched the sky, the strange play of lights flashing in and out, in and out.

Then, she slept.

***

_Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud._ Blue jerked awake in time to hear Kavinsky pounding on the door, howling.

“I’m going to burn this motherfucker down! You hear me? Fuck this!” She punctuated with vicious kicks to the door, her hands braced against the doorframe.

Pressing her knuckles against her eyes for a moment, Blue sat up and then looked around. Deja vu. Kavinsky’s room or—Kavinsky’s room, maybe, but not in the house in Henrietta. Clothes littered the floor, dresser drawers askew, although it was unclear if Kavinsky left her room this way or wreaked havoc while Blue was asleep.

Kavinsky whirled around, eyes alighting on Blue. “Hey, lady. Welcome back to the land of the living. Jesus mothershitting Christ.” She turned to kick at the door again. “This—ASSHOLE—won’t let us out.”

Blue took a breath; someone needed to. Kavinsky appeared to have worked herself into a frenzy, and God only knew how long she’d been kicking at the door. She hoisted herself off the bed, went to stand by Kavinsky, and twisted the doorknob. Locked.

“You don’t think I tried that?”

“I think you need to calm down is what I think.”

“Calm—what? What? Calm down? What the fuck. Sure. Sure. I’ll calm down. I’ll motherfucking—”

Blue grabbed Kavinsky’s arm, and Kavinsky slowed, allowed herself to look in Blue’s eyes.

“I can’t fucking sleep. I’m too wired. Whatever he gave me—I can’t sleep.”

Blue believed her, for her pupils were blown, her irises eaten up into nothing. Kavinsky on cocaine was a bad dream; this was a nightmare. Her father must have known exactly what to do with a dreamer because Kavinsky, like this, was all but powerless.

Kavinsky’s strength had never been physical, had only ever been in dreams and in her ability to draw power to herself. Her pack of dogs loomed large in Henrietta, leashed to a single master, and Blue knew vividly what she could produce when she dreamed. All this, and Blue felt a twinge of insufficiency in her chest. What use was a battery with nothing to power?

No use at all.

Blue sat and pulled on Kavinsky’s arm still trapped in her grip; Kavinsky slumped down against the door, knees pulled up to her chest, foot tapping a staccato beat against the carpet. Staccato like her pulse, which Blue could feel jumping in Kavinsky’s wrist.

Insufficiency—Skov could break down the door, Jiang could pick the lock. Blue could do nothing but sit here next to a girl jittering out of her skin. Even Ronan, Kavinsky’s biggest failure, could sleep and dream them up a solution. Sleep and dream, and Blue looked down at her boot.

She felt, then, immediately foolish. Wallowing never did anyone any good, least of all Blue. She remembered Calla, once, gesturing around the reading room, and saying, _What good is all this if you don’t_ — she punctuated with three sharp taps against Blue’s forehead— _use your head?_

Blue reached into her boot, dug around in the pocket sewn inside, and produced a small handful of pills, the pills Kavinsky had given to her for safekeeping and for easy access all those weeks ago. She immediately clapped one hand over Kavinsky’s mouth, for Kavinsky was, she knew, gearing up to holler again.

Kavinsky stage-whispered instead. “You. Tiny. Little. Genius.” She punctuated each word with a sloppy kiss to Blue’s forehead.

Blue grimaced and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yeah, that’s me, the genius. So, are these going to work?”

“Fuckin’ beats me.” Kavinsky scraped the pile of pills from Blue’s hand to her own. “Mazel tov,” she said as she lifted the fistful to her mouth.

“Wait!” Blue grabbed her hand. “All of them? I’m coming with you, right?”

“Man, no way. I just need to grab, like, a key or a fucking grenade launcher. Who knows. I can handle it.”

 _On my own_ , unspoken.

Blue sat back against the door and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Yeah. Go handle it on your own. Good luck.”

“Babe, just...it’ll be fine. I’ll be right back.” And with that, Kavinsky threw them into her mouth and crunched down before Blue could stop her, chewing the pills to dust and swallowing. “I’ll be—”

And Kavinsky slumped, head lolling to her shoulder, asleep.

Blue reached back into the pocket in her boot, for she hadn’t given Kavinsky her whole stash. She rolled a pill between her fingers, the edge of it smooth and chalky. She wasn’t sure what to do, whether she should join Kavinsky in the dream, whether she would make things worse or better. Hard to tell.

Five minutes. She’d give Kavinsky five minutes. Maybe less, she thought. How much time did it take for Kavinsky to pull something? No time at all. Three minutes, then. Three minutes—

Next to her, Kavinsky convulsed.

Immediately, Blue rolled her to her side. How many pills had she taken? She prayed it wasn’t an overdose, considered sticking her fingers down Kavinsky’s throat to bring it all back up.

Kavinsky convulsed again, doubling around her middle, and again. And again.

Comprehension dawned, then horror. Blue lifted up Kavinsky’s shirt, exposing her middle and the bright red bloom across her stomach that would soon darken to a bruise. This was no overdose. Something was happening in the dream, something terrible.

No time, then, no time to think about consequences. Blue scrambled for the pill she’d dropped in the shuffle and tossed it into her mouth, bit down, chewed.

She slept.

***

Blue woke to a concrete jungle. In front of her and stretching down the street, identical apartment buildings marched in military formation, boxy and uniform. Balconies carved spaces for themselves in the concrete like cavities, some of them stark patches of white against the gray concrete, vitiligo.

The city was silent though, eerie, moody. A breeze snaked around Blue and flapped the laundry hanging from a balcony and a flag nearby, rustled through the leaves of a lone tree planted by the roots of one building. The city was empty, devoid of the bustle Blue associated with cities; she’d been to Washington D.C. a few times, school field trips or, rarely, a Sargent weekend day trip, and this city—wherever they were—had none of the activity Blue would have expected. No food trucks, no artists set up with their caricatures, no musicians strumming on sidewalks or selling CDs. No bikes swerving around pedestrians, no pedestrians to shout back. Unsettling.

Blue focused again on the apartment buildings. Gray and boxy—and suddenly Blue knew why they seemed familiar. She’d seen them before in a dream, that very first dream where Kavinsky grew a city from a forest. She remembered the forest floor pooling around her feet, melting into concrete, the buildings rising around her. She and Kavinsky had never discussed where they were, and Blue hadn’t had time to look around.

Above her, the sky—bright, sunny, cheerful—darkened in time with Blue as she remembered why she was here. Kavinsky—Kavinsky was here somewhere, and she was in trouble. Blue pulled herself to her feet, whirling around in a circle. Alone in a city like this, unfamiliar, empty; she had no idea which way to go.

Faintly, in the distance, she heard a shout. That must be Kavinsky, must be, for no living things moved here, neither pedestrians nor motorists, neither city pigeons nor subway rats. Only Blue moved, and she moved toward the sound of her dreamer.

Another shout, and then another; this time, a man’s voice joined Kavinsky’s, and Blue, even as she ran, tried to puzzle it out. How could he be here, Kavinsky’s father? For surely it was Kavinsky’s father. Blue hadn’t pulled him in, couldn’t have, because Kavinsky was already in trouble while Blue was still awake. All three of them now were in the same dream. Impossible, her footsteps said as they pounded the pavement toward the sound of voices. Impossible.

She rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. There they were, thrown in sharp relief against the empty city streets.

Kavinsky knelt, one arm around her stomach and the other braced against the ground, her head bowed. Above her towered her father, one hand clenched in a fist and the other reaching for Kavinsky.

Time slowed.

His hand crept forward even as Blue’s eyes darted to the right, the left, looking for something, anything, that would help her. There. A gun, a dream thing, one of K’s. Blue had seen it before, for Kavinsky was wont to produce perfection over and over. _DREAM_ , it said on one side, _KILLER_ on the other. Kavinsky’d had it, Blue assumed, and had been disarmed, for it lay closer to Blue now than Kavinsky. Tossed aside by a man who’d known he already had the upper hand.

Blue crept toward it, even as Kavinsky’s father tangled one hand in Kavinsky’s hair and raised his fist. Blue reached it, finally, and flicked the safety off, for she’d learned a lot from Kavinsky in the past few months. She raised it, pointed it toward Kavinsky’s father. She remembered Kavinsky telling her, _Don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you mean it_. She meant it now.

“Stop.” Blue said. Louder now. “Stop!”

He stopped and twisted in time with Kavinsky looking up at Blue, and now Blue could see her face. Blood coated her lips, and Blue’s heart rose to her throat quick enough to choke her.

Blue swallowed thickly. “Stop,” she said again. “Let her go.”

He did. He took a step back, then, away from Kavinsky and from Blue and held up his hands, supposed caution belied by the look on his face. It was wry and mocking, like he knew Blue wouldn’t pull the trigger.

He was wrong.

Blue squeezed the trigger; _Squeeze, don’t pull_ , Kavinsky had taught her. The gunshot went off, and the gun leapt in Blue’s hand. The bullet had gone wide, so wide, hitting the building to the left.

He had ducked, but now he stood again and edged back toward the alley.

Blue looked over to Kavinsky, who had gotten to her feet, one arm still cradling her middle and the other braced against her bent knee instead of the ground.

Kavinsky nodded. “Again,” she said, and so Blue squeezed again.

Wide, again, and now Kavinsky’s father was only steps away from the alley. Blue could still see the smile on his face, for he knew she was no threat to him, not with a gun, not like this.

Kavinsky, though, Kavinsky was a threat. She reached Blue and took the gun from her before sinking three rounds into the concrete where her father’s head had been just moments before. She grunted in disgust before flicking the safety back on and shoving the gun into the waistband of her pants.

Blue looked at her then, really looked, and saw the blood on her mouth came from her lip, split down the middle. Not internal bleeding then, although clearly it might have been if Blue were any slower. She breathed and wrapped her arms around Kavinsky, mindful of her sore stomach.

Kavinsky, in turn, wrapped an arm around Blue’s shoulders and tangled her fingers in Blue’s hair. She sighed. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “Can’t you feel it?”

Blue could feel it. Besides the empty city, something lingered in the air, some malaise, something Blue had never felt. Not in a dream, not with Kavinsky.

“It’s not my dream,” said Kavinsky. “It’s not mine or yours. It’s his.”

“How—” started Blue.

“He’s like me. I’m like him. I told you, you know. The apple doesn’t fall far.”

Blue stilled against Kavinsky then, her head still on Kavinsky’s shoulder. Blue had wondered, all this time, what there was for Kavinsky to fear if she could dream a remedy for every problem, even a problem like her own father.

This, then, was the answer. He was a dreamer, just like her.

“Okay, well, that’s a problem for future you. K, we have to go. You have to wake up.”

“Man, you don’t get it. We’re in his dream. There’s no waking up for us,” she said. She shrugged out of Blue’s arms. She repeated, “Can’t you feel it?”

Blue, no expert on dreams, had to take her word for it. Kavinsky had always pulled her out, not the other way around; she didn’t know how to pull herself out of a dream that wasn’t hers. She supposed that’s exactly what Kavinsky meant.

Trapped, then.

Kavinsky continued, “We have to go after him. I don’t know about you, but I’m not gonna Inception this shit, so we got one choice.”

Blue asked the obvious question. “What happens if you kill a dreamer in their dream?”

“Ah, fuck if I know, but I’m not—” Kavinsky looked around at the apartment buildings surrounding them. “I don’t want to stay here and find out.” She took Blue’s hand and pulled her in the direction of the alley before stopping abruptly, twisting to face Blue instead. “Look. I just want to say...I can handle my shit, you know. I can handle my—I can handle it.” Kavinsky paused for a moment before continuing. “You weren’t supposed to be there for that. You weren’t supposed to see it—me, like that.”

Blue looked back at her, at her busted lip and the brief moment of vulnerability in her eyes. “No offense,” she said, quiet and low, “but you weren’t doing a bang-up job on your own.” And she gently touched Kavinsky’s cheekbone, the leading edge of her black eye. “Everyone needs help sometimes.”

“I’m not everyone,” Kavinsky replied.

Blue didn’t argue, but she squeezed Kavinsky’s hand, just a little. “I can handle my shit too, and maybe you don’t have to handle all of yours alone.”

Kavinsky mumbled, “I didn’t ask you to.”

“Yeah, because you’re terrible at asking. It’s a good life skill, by the way. Asking for things.” Blue paused, waiting for Kavinsky to keep going, and then sighed. “How about we talk about this later, huh? We’re kind of in a bit of a situation, you know.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Kavinsky, tone matching Blue’s, soft. “Yeah. Let’s go.” She pulled the gun back out of her waistband and flicked the safety off, finger still on the guard.

Blue wondered how on earth they would find Kavinsky’s father in a city like this, in the maze of apartments turned offices turned parks turned skyscrapers, but she needn’t have worried about getting lost. Every route but one was blocked off, like a video game Blue saw Kavinsky play one time. Every route, but the one they were meant to go down. Now, Blue worried more about what they would find at the end of their path. She had, perhaps, an irrational amount of confidence that they would know when they arrived to their destination, whatever that destination may be, and that Kavinsky’s father wouldn’t jump out of every shadow along the way.

Kavinsky obviously didn’t share that confidence because she spooked like a horse at every rustle of a leaf across the road, every spectre of laundry billowing in the breeze.

Blue kept tight to her side anyway, fingers threaded through fingers, glad for once that Kavinsky was as comfortable with that gun as she was.

Onward, they marched.

Narrow streets gave way to four-lane thoroughfares, double white lines to grassy medians with trees dotted along them, boxy apartment blocks to rows of buildings with varying facades. Here, a bright red storefront; there, curved, wrought-iron railings in lieu of cement. Blue and Kavinsky entered a park and walked through, knees grateful for grass instead of asphalt and skin cooling under the shade of the tall trees. Blue spotted friendly red roofs through the greenery, and glass—so much glass compared to where they’d come from. Windows winked huge at her and glinted bright in the sun and smiled at their neighbors; Blue still glimpsed block buildings here and there, but affluence had softened the corners, or the trees and shrubs and parks and flowerbeds had, or maybe wealth and beauty were fated bedfellows, even here.

Kavinsky drew up short, suddenly, and gazed up at an apartment building. She recognized it, somehow, Blue thought, and the pieces slotted together. The Brutalist architecture, the characters on signs that she couldn’t read but which looked familiar from Kavinsky’s tattoo...they were in Bulgaria. Or a dream version of Bulgaria, but one that Kavinsky recognized.

The building ahead of them, the one Kavinsky stared at, seemed at odds with everything around it, even here. The sharp lines on the left mimicked all those apartment blocks they’d passed, but there the similarities ended. Great curved balconies danced across the edge of the building for each floor, painted a cheerful red, contrasting sharply with the asymmetrical bent of the architecture on the right of the building. Modernity had visited this building, and Kavinsky looked shell shocked by it, or by the memory of it.

For it was a memory; it must be a memory, Blue thought, for Kavinsky to gaze at it with holy reverence, or holy fear.

“All roads lead home,” Kavinsky murmured. She squeezed Blue’s hand. “Let’s finish this, yeah?”

Blue squeezed back. “Yeah.” Her heart pounded. She knew what they’d face inside: a dreamer in perfect control of his dream, in perfect control of them. He’d had years and years, decades, to perfect what Kavinsky did in her dreams, and Blue knew he’d use that experience to deadly effect. Her palm, linked with Kavinsky’s, sweated, or perhaps Kavinsky’s did.

They advanced.

The first floor of the building was a cafe, the apartments stacked on top of it. The shop was cool inside, and Blue shivered. Lingering in the air, the smell of coffee permeated the space, soaked into the dusty orange armchairs and the chrome-colored stools arranged along a wooden counter. This, like everywhere else, was empty, all the more eerie for its silence and at odds with the normal bustle of a coffee shop near the city center.

Blue and Kavinsky walked toward the back, toward a door with a keycard slot next to it, the sensor pulsing red. Kavinsky pulled on the door anyway, and it opened to a lobby with a set of stairs and an elevator—the door must have opened for Kavinsky’s father too, Blue thought, because he wasn’t in the café, and it was clear that they could go nowhere else.

They took the stairs. Blue looked over to see the grim set to Kavinsky’s mouth; they were close.

Top floor. Red-painted door with the number six emblazoned on the front. It opened easily.

He waited so patiently for them, and here they were. He was just a shadow in the depths of the apartment. An outline of a person, eyes gleaming.

Kavinsky raised her gun, the muzzle barely past the threshold of the apartment, and fired—once, twice, three times, lightning fast, just like she had earlier. If this were any other time, any other place, her father’s brain matter would have hit the wall behind him with a sick splatter. If this were any other place, her father would have been dead before he hit the floor.

This, though, was a dream, his dream, and so the bullets floated whispering to the ground. They didn’t even come close.

Blue and Kavinsky, then, walked forward, hand in hand, through the doorway. No other choice, the path behind them blocked and Kavinsky’s father beckoning.

The door shut behind them, shivering in its frame.

Her father spoke. “Hello, sweetheart.” His gaze roved over Blue and then snapped back to Kavinsky. “This doesn’t have to be complicated,” he said. “I can send you back now, both of you, if you behave. God knows neither of us want to be here,” and he glanced toward a closed door on his right.

Wait a minute, Blue thought. He didn’t want to be here either? This was his dream, wasn’t it?

“No fuckin’ way,” said Kavinsky. “I’m not going back until I get what I came for.” She let the gun dangle at her side, finger still on the trigger, safety still off.

Her father sighed. “I can send you back anyway. I can send you back, and you’ll be trapped in that little room with,” and he took a step forward, “nothing.”

Blue saw Kavinsky eye the distance between them, and she took a step back toward Blue, holding out one arm as if to shield Blue from something, from a storm, from the inevitable creep of rain in the distance before lightning struck.

Her father saw that too, smiled, and said, “I see. Is this her, sweetheart?” He took another step forward towards both of them and held up his hands, placating, voice sugar sweet. Eyes on Blue, he spoke to Kavinsky. “It is her, isn’t it? Thrilling that you found what you were looking for. We all need someone like her, don’t we?” He swiveled his head toward his daughter. “We all need—” a pause, again “—company, sweetheart.”

Someone like her? Blue wondered.

Kavinsky spat in his direction, bloody spittle making a grim rorschach pattern before his feet. “Fuck you,” she said.

“Ah, ah, ah,” said her father, in turn stepping closer to the door and to Blue.

Like a gunshot, like dread or doom or bloody salvation, the door to the right groaned open, hinges protesting, and Kavinsky’s mother stepped through.

Kavinsky’s father, attention divided, turned to face his wife, presented his back to Kavinsky. What had he to fear from her?

Kavinsky’s mother—shade or shadow, she walked forward, stopping between Kavinsky and her father.

Blue watched Kavinsky’s face, laid open at the sight of her mother, before it hardened and rearranged itself into a familiar sneer.

“You are not,” Kavinsky said, “doing this to me again. This is your fucking fault, and I’m not dealing with it again!” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed to hide it. “I won’t.”

Kavinsky’s father peered around her mother, and Blue saw him pull together his surprise, straighten it back into armor as surely as he straightened his lapels. He’d been here before, and he’d always won. He started, “Jo—”

“No,” Kavinsky cut in sharply. “No. You, shut up. _Shut up_.” While Kavinsky’s father had recovered from his surprise, Kavinsky had forged hers into something else; anger, a weapon, sharpened to a point. Kavinsky had been here before too, and she’d always lost, and Blue knew she’d be damned if she lost again.

Kavinsky glanced down at Blue, at where their hands joined together, and Blue squeezed, poured her heart into this one gesture. Kavinsky, in turn, looked at her blankly; something had shuttered her eyes, and Blue couldn’t see anything but darkness within them.

Turning to her mother, Kavinsky said, “Mom.” She stopped, looked at Blue, looked back at her mother. “Mom—”

Kavinsky’s mother stepped toward her, then. Reaching out, Kavinsky’s mother grasped Kavinsky’s hand, bridging a gap, a lifetime. A linked chain the three of them made, hand in hand. Blue watched as Kavinsky’s mother laid her other hand on Kavinsky’s cheek, cradling it, and Blue felt Kavinsky lean into her mother’s touch.

They stayed like that for a moment, and Blue felt a glimmer of hope, incongruous with the creeping dread of their approach to the apartment and the way her skin crawled in the presence of Kavinsky’s father. This was Kavinsky’s mother like Blue had never seen her, like hadn’t existed in Henrietta or perhaps before; clear and focused, for whatever shuttered her daughter’s eyes had sharpened hers. Whatever damage had been done between Kavinsky and her mother, the rot at the barest edges of it had been eaten away. This, then, seemed like a path forward.

Blue glanced over to Kavinsky’s father, frozen. The miasma surrounding him, his aura, had receded, nothing more than a shadow now, and the apartment seemed the brighter for it. Or perhaps Kavinsky’s mother had forced it back, for he hadn’t spoken.

Kavinsky’s mother dropped her daughter’s hand and turned back to face her husband. “You—” she said, and Blue had never heard her speak before. Her voice was soft, musical, and within it Blue thought she saw the woman she had been, the version before.

She continued. “You dreamers, with your shiny things. You thieves, taking what isn’t yours and expecting us to fall at your feet. You eat everything around you and spit out the gristle and hold it up to us. ‘Look at this creation,’ you say. Fools. You don’t,” and she took a step toward Kavinsky’s father, “know what real power is.”

Kavinsky’s father opened his mouth as if to say something, but her mother made a sharp gesture, and he snapped his mouth shut.

Magic? Blue wondered. Dream magic, or something else? Or just surprise? She looked at Mr. Kavinsky’s face, blotchy and red. Magic, then, which would make Mrs. Kavinsky something else. Something other. Something besides a dreamer. For the first time, Kavinsky’s father looked out of his depth. Scared.

Good.

Kavinsky’s mother turned to them, then, and spoke to Kavinsky. “You, my child, this is your birthright. You’re waiting for permission from him when you must, instead, take it from him. You must take it. He will not give it to you. And you—” she turned to Blue, “little witch.” Her eyes softened. “Little witch, you must help her take it, for she cannot do it alone.” She turned back to her husband and said, softly, musing, “He was right about one thing. We cannot do it alone.”

She withdrew, then, to the corner of the room and sat gracefully in the straight-backed wooden chair nestled in the corner. She would be a witness to whatever came next, but the rest was up to Kavinsky. Kavinsky and Blue.

Little witch.

Little witch, and dream magic. She’d been called a witch before, by the children of parents who believed a house of psychics was ruining the good moral character of their Christian town. Never by anyone who knew what they were talking about. Never by, one could guess, an actual witch. Never in a dream.

Blue realized, then, that Kavinsky’s mother was just like her. Kavinsky’s mother pulled them all into this dream, all of them, and she didn’t look fazed. How powerful was she? Blue looked at Kavinsky’s father who had been silent this entire time, silent and fighting against some invisible bonds.

Blue stepped forward to grab Kavinsky’s free hand, lacing their fingers back together. Kavinsky looked down at their clasped hands and up to meet Blue’s eyes.

The darkness that had shuttered Kavinsky’s eyes lifted for a moment, and Blue saw a glimmer of recognition once again. Blue breathed. She said to Kavinsky, “A dream is a dream, right? Who cares whose it is? It can be yours too. You can take it. Wake up, K. Let’s wake up.”

“You’re right,” Kavinsky said, still looking at Blue. “Some nights, you just take it.” She closed her eyes, and Blue felt the energy rush out from her own chest. Their hands, metal-hot, glowed with the force of the current passing through them until it burst forth in a giant cloud of light. For a moment, Blue could see nothing, blinded by rippling reality and shifting dreams as the energy dispelled the miasma of that apartment.

It centered again within Kavinsky, and Kavinsky opened her eyes. She smiled at her father, but the smile had no warmth, her teeth edged in blood and her eyes still cold. With one hand, she pointed the gun at her father; with the other, she dropped Blue’s right hand and instead looped her arm around Blue and reached for her left, lacing their fingers together with her palm to the back of Blue’s hands. Then, she placed their hands over Blue’s eyes. Without taking her eyes from her father, she pressed a chaste kiss to Blue’s forehead, close to their clasped hands, and whispered, “You don’t need to see this.”

And Blue understood. This wasn’t for her to witness. Whatever came next, it was for the Kavinsky family only. Kavinsky’s mother stood as judge and jury and Kavinsky herself as executioner; whatever justice this was rested with those who had born witness to it countless times before, and no others. Not even Blue.

Blue closed her eyes.

The gun went off, once, twice, like the crack of a whip in the stillness of the apartment. Blue flinched, and her ears rang, but Kavinsky’s arm around her shoulders kept her steady. Only twice, no more, and Blue remembered the size of the clip, but what was a man against a dream? Nothing.

Kavinsky tugged, then, at Blue, turning them both around toward the door and away from the—the body. She drew their hands away from Blue’s eyes and tossed the gun away, leaving it in the room. Leaving it all in the room.

Blue twisted the handle of the door, and it opened easily now, here in Kavinsky’s dream. They stepped through, and it swung closed, the latch clicking quietly against its metal plate.

“Let’s wake up,” Blue repeated. She placed one hand on the side of Kavinsky’s face. “It’s time to wake up.”

***

Kavinsky shot awake as Blue opened her eyes. Together, they sat back against the closed door, still in Kavinsky’s room in New Jersey. Kavinsky thumped her head back against the door, closing her eyes for a moment. For a moment, just a moment, they breathed in unison.

“So,” said Blue.

“So.” Kavinsky stared at the ceiling. “I thought it would feel different. All these years, I thought I’d feel good about it. Or maybe bad. I don’t know, man, patricide's a new line to cross. But I just feel—”

“Empty,” Blue finished for her.

Kavinsky rolled her head against the door to catch Blue’s gaze. Blue, though, was looking down at her hands.

“You ever, you know—?”

Blue sighed, still looking down. “No. Not really. Someone I know—I was there, that’s all. It’s not something you forget, really.” Finally, she looked up at Kavinsky who was looking back at her with nothing but questions in her eyes. “I need to say something.”

It was Kavinsky’s turn to look down at her hands, her face resigned.

Blue took her hand and continued. “I want to say I’m sorry.”

Kavinsky’s head snapped back up, and she narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m sorry. I didn’t take it seriously, and I got up in your business about something that has nothing to do with me, and then I overreacted when you wouldn’t, like, tell me about it. It wasn’t my business. You were right, and I’m sorry.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Kavinsky said, gently. “It’s always been about you, Blue. All of it.” She traced the edges of Blue’s knuckles with her free hand. “I knew about my dad, obviously, back in June, like I was looking at my fucking future, you know? Thirty years, if—well. And then I went home, and I found out about my mom. This whole time, she could do what you do, and I had no idea. She’s been— And I thought, you know, is that what I want? To play out this fucking tragedy again? Real cycle of violence shit.”

Kavinsky breathed out half a laugh. “Fuckin’ introspection, man. It’ll kill you. Anyway, I lost it, and he lost it right back. Went to jail, the whole nine. I miscalculated though. I didn’t think—” She swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t think he’d really, you know. Do what he did to you. Like, me, my mom, I get it, but he really did exceed expectations.”

Blue waited for a moment, until she was sure Kavinsky had finished, gave her the space to breathe. She said, then, “You don’t have to apologize for your family.”

“I’m not. I mean, I guess I am, but I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you. It was your business. I knew what I knew, and I really thought I could handle it on my own, but it was your business too. I should have said something.”

Blue smiled a little. “You know, I meant what I said too. I can handle my shit and maybe even some of yours.”

“Uh huh,” said Kavinsky, clearing her throat, her eyes suspiciously misty. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say. Hey,” she said, switching topics, “what do you say we give the pigs a chance to earn their keep?” She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket, a dream thing. She unlocked it and dialed 911, looking sidelong at Blue, clearly amused about something.

Blue, for her part, was horrified. She hissed, “There’s a dead fucking body in the other room.”

“What are they gonna find? Dream bullets and three battered women locked in their rooms? Come on. They can’t put this one together. Trust me,” Kavinsky said, smiling, and affected an awful parody of a Henrietta accent. “This ain’t my first rodeo, darlin’.”

Blue kicked her in the shin but smiled back. “Yeah, okay. Okay. Lead us on out of here, partner.”

**Author's Note:**

> Summary of the first fic in this series: Kavinsky, bad news, uses a series of ill-advised tactics to woo Blue Sargent, psychic’s daughter. Against all odds, it works; in the Venn diagram of “be gay, do crimes,” Blue sits firmly in the gay circle. Together, they dream—mirror magic at work—and, after some ups and downs, they break Blue’s curse. And then they kiss and live happily ever after, or until this fic.
> 
> This fic has been a long time coming, and I mean a really long time coming. Thank you to [thegeminisage](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thegeminisage) for letting me talk about it for a year and a half.


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